They went "uptown" of an afternoon and had a promenade, with now and then a nod from some of the quality. Betty was very much elated when Cary Adams walked home with her one afternoon and planned about the party. He would ask three of the young fellows, and with himself they would give some college songs. He knew Miss Morse's cousin, Morris Winslow, very well--he met him quite frequently at the Royalls'. Indeed, Cary knew he was a warm admirer of Isabel Royall.

After all, the much-talked-of suit was only a best Sunday suit of black broadcloth. Doris looked disappointed.

"Did you expect I would have red and white stripes down the sides and blue stars all over the coat?" Warren asked teasingly. "And an eagle on the buttons? I am afraid then I should be impressed and taken out to sea."

"Betty," she said afterward, "will you have a freedom suit when you are twenty-one. And must it be a black gown?"

"I think they never give girls that," answered Betty laughingly. "Theirs is a wedding gown. Though after you are twenty-one, if you go anywhere and earn money, you can keep it for yourself. Your parents cannot claim it."

Warren had a holiday. His father said he did not want to see him near the store all day long. He went over to Uncle Win's, who was just having some late cherries picked to grace the feast, and he was asked into the library, where Uncle Win made him a very pleasant little birthday speech and gave him a silver watch to remember the occasion by. Warren was so surprised he hardly knew how to thank him.

Betty was sorry there could be no dancing at the party, especially as Mr. Winslow had offered black Joe. But mother would be so opposed they did not even suggest it.

The young people began to gather about seven. They congratulated the hero of the occasion, and one young fellow recited some amusing verses.

They played games and forfeits and had a merry time. The Cambridge boys sang several beautiful songs, and others of the gay, rollicking order.

The supper table looked very inviting, Betty thought. Altogether it was a great pleasure to the young people, who kept it up quite late, but then it was such a delightful summer night! Doris thought the singing the most beautiful part of all.

Warren's great surprise occurred the next morning. There was a new sign up over the door in the place of the old weather-beaten one that his father had admitted was disgraceful. And on it in nice fresh lettering was:

F. LEVERETT & SON.

"Oh, father!" was all he could say for a moment.

"Hollis was a good, steady boy--I've been blest in my boys, and I thank God for it, so when Hollis was through with his trade, and had that good opportunity to go in business, I advanced him some money. He has been prospered and would have paid it back, but I told him to keep it for his part. This will be your offset to it. Cousin Winthrop is coming down presently, and Giles Thatcher, and we will have all the papers signed, so that if anything happens to me there will be no trouble. You've been a good son, Warren, and I hope you will make a good, honorable man."

The tears sprang to Warren's eyes. He was very glad he had yielded some points to his father and accepted obedience as his due to be rendered cheerfully. For Mr. Leverett had never been an unreasonable man.

Uncle Win congratulated him again. Betty and her mother went down in the afternoon to see the new sign. Aunt Priscilla thought it rather risky business, for being twenty-one didn't always bring good sense with it, and too much liberty was apt to spoil anyone with no more experience than Warren.

Betty said Aunt Priscilla must have something to worry about, which was true enough. She had come to the Leveretts' to see how she could stand "being without a home," as she phrased it. But she found herself quite feeble, and with a cough, and she admitted she never had quite gotten over the winter's cold which she took going to church that bitter Sunday. As just the right person to keep her house had not come to hand, and as it really was cheaper to live this way, and gave one a secure feeling in case of illness, she thought it best to go on. Elizabeth Leverett made her feel very much at home. She could go down in the kitchen and do a bit of work when she wanted to, she could weed a little out in the garden, she could mend and knit and pass away the time, and it was a pleasure to have someone to converse with, to argue with.

She had been in great trouble at first about black Polly. That she had really entertained the thought of getting rid of her in a helpless old age seemed a great sin now.

"And the poor old thing had been so faithful until she began to lose her memory. How could I have resolved to do such a thing!" she would exclaim.

"You never did resolve to do it, Aunt Priscilla," Mr. Leverett said one day. "I am quite sure you could not have done it when it came to the pinch. It was one of the temptations only."

"But I never struggled against it. That is what troubles me."

"God knew just how it would end. He did not mean the poor creature to become a trouble to anyone. If he had wanted to try you further, no doubt he would have done it. Now, why can't you accept the release as he sent it? It seems almost as if you couldn't resign yourself to his wisdom."

"You make religion so comfortable, Foster Leverett, that I hardly know whether to take it that way. It isn't the old-fashioned way in which I was brought up."

"There was just one Doubting Thomas among the Twelve," he replied smilingly.

There was little need of people going away for a summering then, though they did try to visit their relatives in the country places about.

People came up from the more southern States for the cool breezes and the pleasant excursions everywhere. There were delightful parties going out almost every day, to the islands lying off the city, to the little towns farther away, to some places where it was necessary to remain all night. Madam Royall insisted upon taking Doris with the girls for a week's excursion, and she had a happy time. Cary went to Plymouth to his aunt's, and was fascinated with sea-going matters and the naval wars in progress. Josiah March was a stanch patriot, and said the thing would never be settled until we had taught England to let our men and our vessels alone.

Only a few years before our commerce had extended over the world.

Boston--with her eighty wharves and quays, her merchants of shrewd and sound judgment, ability of a high order and comprehensive as well as authentic information--at that time stood at the head of the maritime world. The West Indies, China,--though Canton was the only port to which foreigners were admitted,--and all the ports of Europe had been open to her. The coastwise trade was also enormous. From seventy to eighty sail of vessels had cleared in one day. Long Wharf, at the foot of State Street, was one of the most interesting and busy places.

The treaty between France and America had agreed that "free bottoms made free ships," but during the wars of Napoleon this had been so abridged that trade was now practically destroyed. Then England had insisted upon the right of search, which left every ship at her mercy, and hundreds of our sailors were being taken prisoners. There was a great deal of war talk already. Trade was seriously disturbed.

There was a very strong party opposed to war. What could so young a country, unprepared in every way, do? The government temporized--tried various methods in the hope of averting the storm.

People began to economize; still there was a good deal of money in Boston. Pleasures took on a rather more economical aspect and grew simpler. But business was at a standstill. The Leveretts were among the first to suffer, but Mr. Leverett's equable temperament and serene philosophy kept his family from undue anxiety.

"It's rather a hard beginning for you, my boy," he said, "but you will have years enough to recover. Only I sometimes wish it could come to a crisis and be over, so that we could begin again. It can never be quite as bad as the old war."

Doris commenced school with the Chapman girls at Miss Parker's. Uncle Win had a great fancy for sending her to Mrs. Rowson.

"Wait a year or so," counseled Madam Royall. "Children grow up fast enough without pushing them ahead. Little girlhood is the sweetest time of life for the elderly people, whatever it may be for the girls. I should like Helen and Eudora to stand still for a few years, and Doris is too perfect a little bud to be lured into blossoming. There is something unusual about the child."

When anyone praised Doris, Uncle Win experienced a thrill of delight.

Miss Parker's school was much more aristocratic than Mrs. Webb's. There were no boys and no very small children. Some of the accomplishments were taught. French, drawing and painting, and what was called the "use of the globe," which meant a large globe with all the countries of the world upon it, arranged to turn around on an axis. This was a new thing.

Doris was quite fascinated by it, and when she found the North Sea and the Devonshire coast and the "Wash" the girls looked on eagerly and straightway she became a heroine.

But one unlucky recess when she had won in the game of graces a girl said:

"I don't care! That isn't anything! We beat your old English in the Revolutionary War, and if there's another war we'll beat you again. My father says so. I wouldn't be English for all the gold on the Guinea coast!"

"I am not English," Doris protested. "My father was born in this very Boston. And I was born in France."

"Well, the French are just as bad. They are not to be depended upon. You are a mean little foreign girl, and I shall not speak to you again, there now!"

Doris looked very sober. Helen Chapman comforted her and said Faith Dunscomb was not worth minding.

She told it over to Uncle Win that evening.

"I suppose I can never be a real Boston girl," she said sorrowfully.

"I think you are a pretty good one now, and of good old Boston stock,"

he replied smilingly. "Sometime you will be proud that you came from the other Boston. Oddly enough most of us came from England in the beginning. And the Faneuils came from France, and they are proud enough of their old Huguenot blood."

She had been to Faneuil Hall and the Market with Uncle Winthrop. They raised all their vegetables and fruit, unless it was something quite rare, and Cato did the family marketing.

Only a few years before the Market had been enlarged and improved. Fifty years earlier the building had burned down and been replaced, but even the old building had been identified with liberty of thought, and had a well-known portrait painter of that day, John Smibert, for its architect. In the later improvements it had been much enlarged, and the beautiful open arches of the ground floor were closed by doors and windows, which rendered it less picturesque. It was the marketplace _par excellence_ then, as Quincy Market came in with the enterprise of the real city. But even then it rejoiced in the appellation of "The Cradle of Liberty," and the hall over the market-space was used for political gatherings.

Huckster and market wagons from the country farms congregated in Dock Square. The mornings were the most interesting time for a visit. The "quality" came in their carriages with their servant man to run to and fro; or some young lady on horseback rode up through the busy throng to leave an order, and then the women whose servant carried a basket, or those having no servant carried their own baskets, and who went about cheapening everything.

So Doris was quite comforted to know that Peter Faneuil, who was held in such esteem, had not even been born in Boston, and was of French extraction.

But girls soon get over their tiffs and disputes. Play is the great leveler. Then Doris was so obliging about the French exercises that the girls could not stay away very long at a time.

Miss Parker's typified the conventional idea of a girl's education prevalent at that time: that it should be largely accomplishment. So Doris was allowed considerable latitude in the commoner branches. Mrs.

Webb had been exacting in the few things she taught, especially arithmetic. And Uncle Win admitted to himself that Doris had a poor head for figures. When she came to fractions it was heartrending. Common multiples and least and greatest common divisors had such a way of getting mixed up in her brain, that he felt very sorry for her.

She brought over Betty's book in which all her sums in the more difficult rules had been worked out and copied beautifully. There were banking and equation of payments and all the "roots" and progression and alligation and mensuration.